July29th

by: Samantha Bennett

An American perspective on Canada ....

You live next door to a clean-cut, quiet guy. He never
plays loud music or throws raucous parties. He doesn't
gossip over the fence, just smiles politely and offers
you some tomatoes. His lawn is cared-for, his house
is neat as a pin and you get the feeling he doesn't
always lock his front door.

He wears Dockers. You hardly know he's there. And then
one day you discover that he has pot in his basement,
spends his weekends at peace marches and that guy
you've seen mowing the yard is his spouse. Allow me
to introduce Canada.

The Canadians are so quiet that you may have forgotten
they're up there, but they've been busy doing some
surprising things. It's like discovering that the mice
you are dimly aware of in your attic have been
building an espresso machine. Did you realize, for
example, that our reliable little tag-along brother
never joined the Coalition of the Willing? Canada
wasn't willing, as it turns out, to join the fun in
Iraq. I can only assume American diner menus weren't
angrily changed to include "freedom bacon," because
nobody here eats the stuff anyway.

And then there's the wild drug situation: Canadian
doctors are authorized to dispense medical marijuana.
Parliament is considering legislation that would not
exactly legalize marijuana possession, as you may
have heard, but would reduce the penalty for possession
of under 15 grams to a fine, like a speeding ticket.
This is to allow law enforcement to
concentrate resources on traffickers; if your garden is
full of wasps, it's smarter to go for the nest rather
than trying to swat every individual bug.
Or, in the United States, bong.

Now, here's the part that I, as an American, can't
understand. These poor benighted pinkos are doing
everything wrong. They have a drug problem:
Marijuana offences have doubled since 1991. And Canada
has strict gun control laws, which means that the
criminals must all be heavily armed, the
law-abiding civilians helpless and the government on
the verge of a massive confiscation campaign. (The
laws have been in place since the '70s, but I'm
sure the government will get around to the confiscation
eventually.) They don't even have a death penalty!

And yet .. nationally, overall crime in Canada has been
declining since 1991. Violent crimes fell 13 percent in 2002.
Of course, there are still crimes committed with
guns -- brought in from the United States, which has
become the major illegal weapons supplier for all of
North America --but my theory is that the surge in
pot-smoking has rendered most criminals too relaxed to
commit violent crimes. They're probably more focused on
shoplifting boxes of Ho-Hos from convenience stores.

And then there's the most reckless move of all: Just
last month, Canada decided to allow and recognize
same-sex marriages. Merciful moose, what can they be
thinking? Will there be married Mounties (they always
get their man!)? Dudley Do-Right was sweet on Nell, not
Mel! We must be the only ones who really care about
families. Not enough to make sure they all
have health insurance, of course, but more than those
libertines up north.

This sort of behavior is a clear and present danger to
all our stereotypes about Canada. It's supposed to be a
cold, wholesome country of polite, beer-drinking hockey
players, not founded by freedom-fighters in
a bloody revolution but quietly assembled by loyalists
and royalists more interested in order and good
government than liberty and independence.

But if we are the rugged individualists, why do we
spend so much of our time trying to get everyone to
march in lockstep? And if Canadians are so
reserved and moderate, why are they so progressive
about letting people do what they want to?

Canadians are, as a nation, less religious than we are,
according to polls. As a result, Canada's government
isn't influenced by large, well-organized religious
groups and thus has more in common with those
of Scandinavia than those of the United States, or,
say, Iran. Canada signed the Kyoto global warming
treaty, lets 19-year-olds drink, has more of its
population living in urban areas and accepts more
immigrants per capita than the United States. These
are all things we've been told will wreck our society.
But I guess Canadians are different, because theirs
seems oddly sound.

Like teenagers, we fiercely idolize individual freedom
but really demand that everyone be the same. But the
Canadians seem more adult -- more secure. They aren't
afraid of foreigners. They aren't afraid of
homosexuality. Most of all, they're not afraid of each
other.

I wonder if America will ever be that cool.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
by Samantha Bennett, Wednesday, July 30, 2003
Copyright 2003 PG Publishing, I do not have any claim on this article